Before turning his attention to environmental storytelling, Valentino Vettori spent 25 years designing immersive, large-scale installations for the fashion industry. His work brought consumers into branded spaces and experiences \u2014 but over time, he grew disillusioned with the impact of the industry and his role in it. That discomfort eventually led to a clean break from fashion and a new creative mission: to use art and technology to spark hope, awareness, and change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2017, Vettori attended the Summit at Sea conference, where he encountered environmentalist Paul Hawken\u2019s work on reversing climate change. The presentation \u2014 and the lack of people in the room \u2014 underscored a growing cultural disconnect between climate urgency and public attention. Vettori walked away from that moment with a clear direction: to create something immersive, emotionally resonant, and solution-focused.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What followed was\u00a0Arcadia Earth, a traveling experiential art exhibition that uses mixed media, technology, and science to explore the planet\u2019s most pressing environmental challenges. The project\u2019s latest iteration \u2014\u00a0\u201cA Vision for Tomorrow\u201d\u00a0\u2014 is a 45-minute immersive 360\u00b0 dome film set to debut at Fort Worth\u2019s Jane & John Justin Foundation Omni Theater on July 27. Customized for the Omni\u2019s massive LED dome, the film blends visual spectacle and scientific storytelling across three environmental chapters: Trees, Air, and Water.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fort Worth Magazine had a chance to speak with Vettori before he boarded a flight to Cowtown for the very first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fort Worth Magazine<\/strong>: What inspired you to become an experiential artist working at the intersection of art, science, and sustainability?\u00a0<\/p>\n Valentino Vettori<\/strong>: I was in fashion for 25 years of my life. At the time, all the retail industry was collapsing \u2014 malls were closing. I went to Summit at Sea in 2017, and my team was running our installation, so I got to go around the conference. That\u2019s when I saw Paul Hawken present. He had just published\u00a0\u201cDrawdown,\u201d and the room was empty. I thought it was fascinating \u2014 we focus so much on people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos going to Mars, but no one was paying attention to what\u2019s happening here on Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n FWM<\/strong>: What did you take away from Hawken\u2019s presentation?\u00a0<\/p>\n VV<\/strong>: There were two major things. First, people don\u2019t get told the story of climate change with a happy ending \u2014 it\u2019s always doom and gloom. And second, people don\u2019t know what to do because it\u2019s all told through scientific data. So for me, it was like: let\u2019s tell a story not about fear, but about solutions and hope. That day, I decided I didn\u2019t want to be in fashion anymore. If I was going to be a storyteller, I wanted to address those two problems. Arcadia became a tool to inform, inspire, and activate.\u00a0<\/p>\n FWM<\/strong>: How did the idea evolve into the immersive dome experience being shown in Fort Worth?\u00a0<\/p>\n VV<\/strong>: We started Arcadia Earth as a large exhibit \u2014 New York was 20,000 square feet, Toronto is 23,000. But I realized I could use our technology to create visuals that fit in beautiful venues like planetariums. A year and a half ago, we tested it. I believe these venues are designed to create memories, and I wanted to bring a message that could live in them \u2014 one that didn\u2019t need travel or a big footprint.\u00a0<\/p>\n FWM<\/strong>: Was the transition to dome format challenging?\u00a0<\/p>\n VV<\/strong>: Oh, yes. The first time I tested it at the Liberty Science Center \u2014 which has the biggest planetarium in North America \u2014 it was horrible. The perspective, the focal point, everything was wrong. We had to redesign everything. What looks good on a flat screen doesn\u2019t translate to a dome. And then we had to render in 8K, which pushed us back months. But in the end, the idea was to create something responsibly \u2014 without the carbon footprint of traditional film shoots.\u00a0<\/p>\n FWM<\/strong>: What\u2019s the storyline behind\u00a0\u2018A Vision for Tomorrow?\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n VV<\/strong>: It\u2019s the journey of a lonely astronaut \u2014 someone disconnected, asking questions, unsure what to believe. He\u2019s guided by AI and travels through three environmental chapters: Trees, Air, and Water. He learns that small things matter. It\u2019s about shifting our mindset from overwhelming to one of awareness.\u00a0<\/p>\n FWM<\/strong>: How do you hope audiences respond?\u00a0<\/p>\n VV<\/strong>: I gave up on expectations. I just want to say, \u2018Hey, look at this,\u2019 and then let people take their own journey. So far, we\u2019ve received incredible thank-you notes from people who watched it. But I believe everyone processes it differently \u2014 and that\u2019s a good thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n FWM<\/strong>: How did American Forests get involved?\u00a0<\/p>\n VV<\/strong>: We needed a partner to fact-check everything. I\u2019m not a scientist, and I wanted to make sure what we were presenting was true. They confirmed the facts and offered an actionable path for viewers. After the film, we have a QR code where people can connect directly with them or other nonprofits. That was important \u2014 not just to inform, but to give people something they could do.\u00a0<\/p>\n FWM<\/strong>: You\u2019ve shown this in some major cities. What\u2019s it like bringing it to Fort Worth?\u00a0<\/p>\n VV<\/strong>: This is my first time here. I\u2019m learning about new parts of America through the film \u2014 Portland, Fort Worth, places I hadn\u2019t been before. I\u2019m excited to experience the culture and see how the audience responds.\u00a0<\/p>\n FWM<\/strong>: What role does sound and scale play in provoking emotion?\u00a0<\/p>\n VV<\/strong>: Memories get created through experience. With this, you have immersive visuals and 360-degree sound \u2014 it\u2019s like a rollercoaster for the senses. Even for me, as an artist, it felt new. And if it\u2019s new to me, I can only imagine how audiences will respond.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before turning his attention to environmental storytelling, Valentino Vettori spent 25 years designing immersive, large-scale installations for the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":91940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,1037,12043,7371,46574,7372,3196,10763,5921,358,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-91939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-art","10":"tag-arts-and-culture","11":"tag-fort-worth","12":"tag-fort-worth-museum-of-science-and-history","13":"tag-fortworth","14":"tag-movie","15":"tag-stephen-montoya","16":"tag-style","17":"tag-texas","18":"tag-top-story","19":"tag-tx","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114915071940665405","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}